A second American Golden Plover

American Golden Plover (Pluvialis dominica)

On Saturday 23 October, I discovered this juvenile American Golden Plover (Pluvialis dominica) in Las Martelas, and the bird was still there today, Oct 25, when these three photographs were taken.

The second example of this North American migrant to appear on La Palma so far this season, two birds have also been recorded on Lanzarote in recent weeks: see appropriate links in Canary Islands Bird News for more details.

Plumage details of the previously-detected adult bird were harder to appreciate than in the present case: in the above photograph, there's no mistaking the four primaries projecting beyond the tertials, with two extending beyond the tail end.

This species "breeds in North American Arctic and subarctic tundra, and migrates south through interior North America, or via Hudson Bay, to reach the coast around New England, then over the Atlantic to South America, with the non-breeding season being spent in northern Argentina and Uruguay" (Shorebirds of the Northern Hemisphere, R. Chandler, 2009).

Presumably it is during that "over the Atlantic to South America" part of the migration route when certain individuals go astray...especially in autumns as stormy as the present one.

The Spanish Rarities Committee is receiving an unusually high number of records for assessment this year, including the country's first Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus), a transatlantic passerine currently located on Lanzarote.